On Parliament Hill

The Government of Canada launched many new initiatives in 2013 to better protect Canadian consumers from dangerous products and unfair practices in the marketplace.

Canadians expect the foods they eat, the health products they take and the consumer products they use to be safe. A great amount of work has been done this past year to strengthen the safeguards we have in place to deal with all types of unsafe products.

Our Government announced the intent to introduce stiffer penalties for businesses that fail to respect federal meat safety requirements and developed enhanced tools for communicating with the public, including revised food recall warnings that are clearer and easier to understand.

We introduced the Healthy and Safe Food for Canadians Framework to inform consumers about healthy and safe food choices, to minimize food safety risks, and to protect Canadians when unsafe foods enter the marketplace. We also initiated a food labelling modernization consultation and committed to engage with Canadians on how nutrition information is presented on food labels.

Canadians will also continue to have instant access to the latest actions against unsafe products through the Recalls and Safety Alerts web application on the Healthy Canadians website. The application, which is now available as a free download as a mobile app, provides easy access to a comprehensive list of recalls, advisories, and safety alerts from Health Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Transport Canada.

We are taking steps to protect Canadian consumers in other areas as well. Whether it is protecting them from inaccurate measurements at the pumps, protecting them from unwanted spam in their inbox, or taking clear action to give them more wireless choices, we are standing up for Canadians in all sectors of the economy.

For instance, we recently introduced measures to promote more choice, lower prices and better service in Canada’s wireless market and took steps to reduce wireless roaming rates, preventing wireless providers from charging their competitors more than they charge their own customers.

We introduced new enforcement tools to hold wireless companies to account when they break the rules, strengthened wireless roaming and tower sharing rules and committed to unbundling television channels so that Canadian families can choose the combination of channels they want.

Finally, we passed the Fairness at the Pumps Act so that when Canadians fill up their gas tanks they actually get what they pay for.

As we move into 2014, we will continue to build on our successes from this year so that when unsafe products and unfair practices are identified, we have the tools we need to keep Canadians safe.